Will Spanish droughts blight my holiday?

Near Girona, in northeast Spain, the vast Sau reservoir is almost dry. Over the past three years, rainfall has been at record lows while temperatures have hit unprecedented highs. Meanwhile, the Basque Country and Navarra have seen extreme flooding and the Pyrenean zone fears for the future of skiing.

Climate change wreaks havoc in different ways – but for Spain, the most pressing issue is lack of rainfall. There is widespread frustration with industries that use a lot of water, from the intensive farming of strawberries and tomatoes in the south to tourism – principally golf courses and luxury hotels. The average citizen in Spain uses around 133 litres of water per day, but a guest at a five-star hotel uses up to three times more. This is partly down to use of showers and baths, but swimming pools account for some of the water usage, as do room cleaning and the washing of bedlinen.

Catalonia is one of the hardest-hit regions and has recently introduced a ban on washing cars and watering parks and gardens, other than with recycled water. Swimming pools, too, can only be topped up with recycled or seawater.

Members of gyms may no longer use the showers, and beachgoers must wait until they get home to wash the sand off. Public fountains have been turned off. Authorities across the Canary Islands have imposed similar bans.

In Andalucia, the drought has also hit hard. Plans to prohibit baths and introduce water meters in hotel rooms are currently being mooted there, but the hotel lobby is a powerful one in Spain and tourism is a crucial pillar of the economy. The general view seems to be that paying visitors should be spared from restrictions on water use.

“Any operation will necessarily have the consensus of the sector,” said Arturo Berna, a spokesman for the Ministry of Tourism – but consensus looks unlikely. Despite an announcement by the Catalan authorities that hotels would be expected to put up signs asking guests to reduce water usage where possible, there is little evidence of this so far.

The Telegraph contacted several upmarket hotels in Barcelona but none was willing to speak about the possible implications for tourists (though they were happy to discuss other sustainability measures). While there are some “Drought Emergency” posters imploring cooperation as tourists arrive at the airport, it would be easy to spend a week in Barcelona without realising there was a problem.

A manager of a five-star hotel, who asked not to be named, said there was nothing in bathrooms or at reception informing guests about the situation. “Our clients are paying for a luxury experience, and we don’t want them to feel they can’t take a bath,” he said.

The flip side of the strain tourism can place on precious resources is the boost the sector lends to the economy. “Tourism is Spain’s major industry,” said Nacho Trives, an agronomist with a smallholding in the western province of Extremadura. “The wealth that it generates goes towards developing sustainable technology, such as desalination plants, which will also benefit the local population.”

How can visitors help? “Tourists have always done their bit,” Trives said, “in small ways. They no longer demand that their towels are washed or their sheets changed on a daily basis. They use the right button when flushing the loo. They take shorter showers. People are happy to be sensible on holiday, and to help their hosts out.”

i Nerja in Andalucia, where no restrictions on water use have been placed on tourists despite them using up to three times as much as locals